A New Normal
by hallow777
Summary: Now that Gina is back in Castle's life, how does the younger Castle, and Beckett, deal with it? What happens when Gina starts pushing Alexis, and Beckett, away?
1. Chapter 1

**So since "Daughter For A Summer" is nearing it's end. I'm going to need a new Kate/Alexis/Castle story to focus on. I've had tons of trouble with this, mostly because I'm not entirely sure what all is going to happen, I only have a vague idea...**

**Yes, it's really short and I'm sorry but I want to get this story up so hopefully I'll be more motivated to work on it.**

**And thanks to the wonderful twitter peeps who helped with the title of this story.**

******Dedicated to Caroline on twitter because she motivated me to actually get something done tonight.**  


**I do NOT own Castle.**

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It was a normal Friday night and the gang was investigating yet another homicide. This one was set up to look like a suicide, but odd ligature marks tipped them off that it wasn't what it appeared.

Richard Castle was busy spinning ridiculous theories when his phone started playing what was becoming a very familiar ringtone. Excusing himself, he walked a little ways away from the crime scene before taking the call.

"Hello, you have reached the amazingly talented, and handsome, Richar-" He was cut off by the voice on the other end.

"Cut the crap, Richard. Where are you?"

"Um, at a crime scene? Where am I supposed to be?"

Gina let out an annoyed sound on the other end. "Dinner at 3Q? You're already ten minutes late, which you would know, if you weren't so busy pretending to be a cop all the time."

Castle grimaced as he realized that he had completely forgotten about their date, even though she had been talking about it nonstop for the last few days. "I'll be right there." With that, he turned on his heel and headed out of the crime scene completely.

Beckett turned around with a crucial piece of evidence in her hand, intending to show him, just in time to see his back disappear out the door.

Not surprised at all, Beckett turned back around and instead, handed the evidence to a nearby uniform so they could bag it.

Unfortunately, it was still just a normal day for them.

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Castle had just walked into the restaurant when his phone rang again, though this time it was from Alexis.

"Hey Pumpkin, what's up?"

"Grams and I were just wondering if you were going to be home for dinner tonight?"

The person checking the reservations instantly recognized him and began leading him to Gina's table, while Castle answered his daughter.

"No, not tonight. Gina and I are having dinner at 3Q tonight, remember?"

"Oh, okay. "

"Did you want me to bring something back for you?"

"Nah, Gram and I are cooking up something."

He was approaching the table Gina was sitting at so he said his goodbyes to his daughter, greeted Gina , and settled in for a wonderful meal.

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"What'd he say, kiddo?"

Alexis put her phone down on the counter and turned to stir the food she was working on. "He's out with Gina so we are on our own tonight. Again."

"Well while he is off having fun without us, we'll just have our own fun! He'll be sorry he missed out."

Alexis gave her a small smile before checking on the dish she had cooking in the oven while Martha poured herself another glass of wine, cursing her only son for being such an idiot when it came to women.

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**Told ya it was short. Tsk tsk, Castle is spending too much time with evil controlling Gina. If you know me, you probably know where this is going so let me just point out that Yes Gina is evil and controlling in this story but No, Castle is not going to be completely oblivious to it. You'll see what I mean.**


	2. Chapter 2

******So apparently I have an inability to write a decent sized chapter on this story, I'm going to try something new. These chapters will be more like snippets. Meaning, they will be short. But, this marks my first Nanowrimo thing so this whole month I will be updating at ton of stories, often. My goal is 50,000 words total on fanfiction before the end of November. Can I do it? I don't know but I am going to try.**

**I do NOT own Castle.**

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Detective Kate Beckett was busy filling out the paper work for her latest case when a surprise visitor showed up. Upon hearing someone clear their throat, she turned around to see Little Castle standing behind her.

"Alexis? What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for dad, but it looks like he isn't here either." Alexis said as she looked around the bull pen for any sign of her father.

"He left a while ago, another date with Gina. Have you tried calling him?"

"Yeah, but he didn't answer…"

"Ah, they are probably just…Busy." Involuntarily cringing at the word 'busy' and its implications.

Alexis made a disappointed sound and Beckett looked up from her paperwork. "Did you need him for something?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, he was supposed to help me with something for school since I need another person to help. I guess he forgot though."

"Martha can't help?"

"She has rehearsals tonight."

Looking back and forth between the young girl and her paper work, she made a decision. Normally she wouldn't do stuff like this but the young girl had grown on her in the nearly two years she had known her.

"Can I help?"

Alexis looked at her in shock, eyeing the paperwork on her desk. "But aren't you busy?"

"There is always paperwork to do, but it can wait. What do we need to do?"

Alexis had brought all the things they would need with her, in case her father was too busy with a case to leave, so Beckett gathered up some of her own paper work and they moved into one of the unused conference rooms.

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After nearly two hours, the project was finished and Alexis arrived home to find her father in his office, working on his newest book.

"Hey dad, how'd your date with Gina go?"

"It went great pumpkin. What about you? Where you were at?"

"Well I went to the precinct to see if that's where you were since you weren't answering your phone."

Castle stopped writing and looked up at her in surprise. "Why were you looking for me?"

"You were supposed to help me with a school thing, don't you remember?"

A look of recognition flashed across his face and she smiled. "I completely forgot about that, sorry pumpkin! Want to do it now?"

"It's okay, detective Beckett helped me while I was at the precinct. And it's getting pretty late so I'm going to head to bed, night dad."

"Oh okay, goodnight." She moved around the desk to kiss him on the cheek before heading upstairs and leaving him to his writing.

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**Meh, this story is hard to write, probably because I have no idea where I am going with this other than a very very vague idea...**


	3. Chapter 3

** The first part of this chapter was the hardest 227 words I have ever written before... I'm sorry, but it was ****necessary****! I can't just snap my fingers and make her disappear. (Though I wish I could) **

**Those of you that talk to me on twitter (hallow888) know that I just got back from staying in the hospital with my grandmother while she had her knee replaced. I'm still tired and I think I maybe getting a cold but I'm slowly catching up on the sleep I lost (Nurses come in all the freaking time and turn on the horrible brightlights that wake up in the middle of the night) so hopefully I can update more frequently on this story. (And others. Almost all of my ongoing stories have about half a chapter written, I'm just having a hard time getting the rest to come out like I want it too.)**

**I do NOT own Castle.**

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"Dad! Dad! You won't believe this! I finally… Oh…" Alexis yelled as she practically flew into the loft, coming to a stop and trailing off when she noticed the two figures on the couch.

"Alexis! What are you doing back already?" Castle sat up from his horizontal position on the couch and turned towards his daughter, thankful that he and Gina hadn't managed to lose _all_ of their clothes yet.

"Uh, I came back because I couldn't wait to tell you that…" Her eyes involuntarily took in the fact that Gina was glaring at her as she sat in her bra and unzipped pants. "Er you know, I just remembered I'm supposed to meet Paige in a little bit. Next time, I'll remember to call ahead if I'm coming home early. Bye!"

"Alexis, wait." But it was too late, she was already out the door and either didn't hear him, or didn't acknowledge him.

"Well now, where were we?"

"Wait, I really should talk to her…" Castle trailed off as her hand came to rest on the waistband of his pants.

"I'm sure it can wait, Rick."

"But."

"Shh, now why don't we move this somewhere a little more private, so we don't have any more interruptions?"

With one last look at the front door, he followed her into his bedroom and shut the door behind them.

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Ten minutes later found Alexis knocking on her best friend's front door.

"Lexie? What are you doing here? I thought you went home to gush to your dad that you finally showed up Kayla by getting a higher score?" Paige let her in and after Alexis greeted Paige's parents, they made their way to her bedroom while Alexis answered her.

"I did but well, let's just say he was a little preoccupied."

Paige turned to her with a look of horror on her face which quickly turned to one of sympathy. "Oh my god. Seriously? Well, you know you are welcome to stay here as long as you need to."

"Thanks, I'll go back later. How about we work on that long assignment Mrs. Pearson gave us? If we do it together it shouldn't take as long."

"Sure."

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**So like I said above, hopefully I can start updating this story quicker.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the last chapter and certain _things_ that happened in there but it had to happen. I'm sorry. **

**I do NOT own Castle.**

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"Oooh, Castle."

He couldn't help the involuntarily tensing of his body as he heard Beckett call his name from the bullpen in that tone of voice. He had no idea what she could possibly want, but his usually dormant survival instincts were screaming at him to run, run far away.

But he stayed where he was and greeted her with a smile when she finally reached him. After all, it couldn't be that bad, right?

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"Male strippers…Why did it have to be _male_ strippers?" Castle muttered to himself as he walked into the loft after the case was closed.

After shutting and locking the door, he walked towards his bedroom, intending to take a shower and change clothes, and nearly jumped out of his skin when two arms wrapped themselves around him from behind.

"Rick…"

"Ah! Gina! What are you doing here? And how did you get in?" Backing out of her hold he put a hand to his racing heart, watching as a confused look came over her face.

"Edwardo let me in…What is that smell?" She stepped closer to him and sniffed. "Perfume…Richard, why do you have perfume on you?"

Gina glared suspiciously at him and he raised his hands up as if to defend himself. "It's not what you think! It was for a case."

"Really? And just what did you have to do for this case? Cozy up with that detective friend of yours?"

"No, then I would smell like cherries…" Seeing her glare become colder, if that was even possible, he quickly continued. "But that's not the point. We had to go to a strip club to find our suspect."

"And what? You had to do some 'in depth' investigating?"

"No, no! It was a _male_ strip club."

"Then how?"

"The audience! Those women are like piranhas! They were all over me."

"Oh yes, I'm sure that was _so_ hard on you."She rolled her eyes and he couldn't help the stray thought that it was cute when Beckett did it, but only annoying when Gina did it. "I can't deal with this tonight, call me tomorrow when you don't smell like _you_ were the entertainment."

Nose in the air, she spun on her heel and walked out of the front door, leaving Castle to stand in the middle of the room, wondering how he was going to get back in her good graces.

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**Unfortunately she isn't gone completely yet... But at least we will get to see some Beckett and Castle in the next chapter, right?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Ahem no, I hadn't forgotten about this story, I just couldn't really think of anything to write about this story until now. I have been sick for nearly the past week and finally getting back into writing. (Because trust me, you do not want me to write while I am sick and/or on cold medicine. I can barely type coherent sentences when I am like that, let alone write a somewhat decent story.)**

**Bleh, Gina... **

**I do NOT own Castle.**

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Castle strolled into the precinct with coffee for two, and a bear claw for a certain homicide detective, who should have been at her desk.

"Where's Beckett?" Castle asked as he headed over to Ryan and Esposito after noticing Beckett wasn't anywhere around.

The two looked at him before Ryan answered.

"We got a case this morning. Witnesses say that the last person they saw the victim with is her boyfriend, but we can't find him, so Beckett is out talking to the boyfriend's family."

"Which you would know, if you had bothered to answer the phone this morning." Esposito added on.

"Sorry... So? Tell me about it, was it gruesome and disturbing?"

As they started filling him in on the details, he really regretted not answering the phone this morning.

It had taken a few days for Gina to get over the whole 'male stripper' thing and since Alexis was spending the night at a friend's, Gina stayed over.

And while he, personally, didn't mind the early morning murder calls, she wasn't entirely happy when the phone rang at five-thirty that morning. She had snatched the phone out of his hands before he could answer it and turned it off, tossing it to the floor before telling him to go back to sleep.

Now, he had really wished he hadn't listened to her, and gone to the crime scene instead so that he could have skipped her rant about early morning phone calls that happened after she woke up at a more decent hour.

Castle spent the rest of the day running down leads with Ryan and Esposito, and though he enjoyed being around them, he was really looking forward to seeing Beckett who was supposed to be back around lunch time.

But before she could head back, they found a lead that implicated the boyfriend might have been taken so she had to go back and question the family again, since the first time she talked to them, she thought the boyfriend was a suspect and not a victim.

Which put her getting back to the precinct right at dinner time and just as Castle was about to head out to pick up some take-out for them to eat when she got back, Gina called and decided that they were going to have dinner together.

Things between them were still a little bit shaky between them, so he didn't dare tell her he had plans and instead, ordered in pizza for the detectives to eat while he left to meet up with Gina.

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Beckett arrived back at the precinct just a few minutes after Castle left, not really surprised to see he wasn't there.

When he had first started working with them again, she expected it to be at least somewhat like it used to be, but in reality, it wasn't much different than when he was gone during the summer.

Before all this, she could barely beg him to leave the precinct, but now it was like he was never there. Or if he was, he would rush off with her only warning being that annoying ringtone that she was really starting to hate.

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**Ideas for this story are very much appreciated! (Hint hint, nudge nudge. Hallow has no freaking ideas for this story.)**

**I really wish I could say she would be gone soon, but that's not going to happen yet. Sigh. **

**Oh and um, if any of you are reading this and wondering where the heck the next chapter of "Cold Chills" is, I'm sorry! I'm working on it! It's just really not cooperating... I think Beckett is just refusing to be stuck with Castle haha! **


	6. Chapter 6

**SHE'S GONE! SHE'S GONE! SHE'S GOOOOOOOOOOONE! You do not know how happy I was to watch last Monday's episode! I totally didn't expect him to break up with her in that episode!**

**Kinda negates this story though... Oh well! I was trying to figure out if I should add some stuff in before the things that happen in this chapter but since they've already broke up in the series, I guess I don't need to drag this one on longer than necessary. **

**This takes place about a month after last chapter.**

**EDIT: Oops, forgot to mention this is dedicated to Gemma30185 on twitter for being awesome!**

**I do NOT own Castle.**

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"Oh I didn't tell you? We postponed our meeting until next week, so you are free to go home." Mrs. Madison, the science teacher, told the young Castle when she showed up at the regular meeting place for the Science Bowl, after school.

"Oh, okay... Is there anything I can help you with?"

"No, no. I'm about to head home myself."

"Alright, see you tomorrow Mrs. Madison." Alexis said, turning on her heel and leaving the class room after unsuccessfully delaying having to go home.

Everyday of the week, she normally had something that kept her busy after school for a few hours, except for Tuesdays, which is why she jumped at the opportunity to join the Science Bowl a while back.

She'd never admit it to anyone but herself, but she really didn't like going home anymore, especially when her father wasn't expecting her for another hour or so. She absolutely hated coming home early and seeing signs of 'things' that her father and his ex-wife/publisher had been doing while she was gone.

Normally, if she came home after her after school activities, he had everything cleaned up, but lately, Gina had been spending more and more time at the loft, and it made the young girl uncomfortable.

It wasn't like Gina was ever rude or mean to Alexis or anything like that, it's just that when she was there, it didn't really seem like _home_ anymore.

She couldn't even remember the last time she and her father had gotten into a light saber fight over some ridiculous thing, or even had an impromptu game of laser tag. All because Gina loved to control his every move, not to mention the fact that she could nag him about writing whenever she wanted, which meant he spent more time than ever on his books.

Not that that was a bad thing, it was good that he was writing, she was just starting to feel a tiny bit neglected lately, which was ridiculous since she was nearly seventeen years old and could take care of herself, but she was really beginning to miss her father.

She asked herself daily how she could miss him when he was home more often than he has been ever since he started working with Detective Beckett, but it just wasn't the same. At least when he was with Beckett, she could call him, or show up anytime, and he would be happy to talk to her or come home, whatever she needed.

It was thoughts of her father's detective friend that unconsciously led her to the twelfth precinct, instead of home that day. Before she really realized where she was, she was already in the lobby and she was just about to head back out, when Detective Beckett herself walked through the doors and spotted the young girl.

"If you are looking for your dad, he went home already, no new cases today."

"Oh, uh that's okay... I wasn't really looking for him."

"Oh?" The unsure girl had caught the detective's attention. "Then why are you here?"

"Honestly? I don't really know. I was supposed to be in a Science Bowl meeting right now but they canceled, and dad isn't really expecting me for a few hours so I was just wandering around and before I knew it, I ended up here."

"I'm sure it wouldn't matter if he wasn't expecting you, you should go on home." Beckett was rightfully confused about why the teen didn't want to go home, since she obviously adored her father.

"Uh well... There is a very large possibility that Gina is there and uh..." Alexis trailed off, not really comfortable mentioning things like that in public. Thankfully, Beckett caught on real quick an offered the young girl an alternative.

"If you don't have anything else to do, I'm sure the guys have already made a mess of the storage room, if you'd like to work on it for a while? Or course you don't have to, if you don't want to."

Needless to say, Alexis spend a good few hours going through the unclaimed evidence in the storage room, only interrupted when Beckett brought in some Chinese take-out for the two of them to eat as an early dinner.

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**Yay! Alexis-centered! It wasn't really supposed to be centered on her, but I've been wanting to write something Alexis-centered for a while and this is what happened.**


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